Smashing a World Record to Smash Plastic Pollution

Sea Turtles Plastic Pollution site tells a disturbing story: In 2009, marine biologists with Disney’s Animal Programs in Melbourne Beach, Florida, discovered a green sea turtle that was having trouble digesting food. They found that a piece of plastic had lodged in the turtle’s gastrointestinal tract. When biologists removed the obstruction, the turtle defecated 74 foreign objects in the subsequent month. Among the items documented were four types of latex balloons, five different types of string, nine different types of soft plastic, four different types of hard plastic, a piece of carpet-like material, and two tar balls to boot. Plastic litter is everywhere. A murky soup of small bits of plastic follows ocean currents. Every year it kills an estimated 100,000 marine mammals . Birds feed bottle caps to their chicks. Turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish. Fish swallo...